Journal
KIDNEY INTERNATIONAL
Volume 102, Issue 1, Pages 96-107Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/ j.kint.2022.02.029
Keywords
glomerulosclerosis; nemo-like kinase; nuclear factor of activated T cell; podocytes; proteinuria; Wntless; Wnt signaling
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health [DK064005, DK106049, DK116816, DK128529]
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Podocyte-derived Wnts play an important role in protecting podocytes from injury by repressing b-catenin via activating non-canonical Wnt/calcium signaling.
Activation of canonical Wnt signaling has been implicated in podocyte injury and proteinuria. As Wnts are secreted proteins, whether Wnts derived from podocytes are obligatory for promoting proteinuria remains unknown. To address this, we generated conditional knockout mice where Wntless, a cargo receptor protein required for Wnt secretion, was specifically deleted in glomerular podocytes. Mice with podocyte-specific ablation of Wntless (Podoinducing kidney damage with Adriamycin for six days, Podo-Wntless-/- mice developed more severe podocyte injury and albuminuria than their control littermates. Surprisingly, ablation of Wntless resulted in upregulation of b-catenin, accompanied by reduction of nephrin, podocin, podocalyxin, and Wilms tumor 1 proteins. In chronic injury induced by Adriamycin, increased albuminuria, aggravated podocyte lesions and extracellular matrix deposition were evident in Podo-Wntlessl-/- mice, compared to wild type mice. Mechanistically, specific ablation of Wntless in podocytes caused down-regulation of the nuclear factor of activated T cell 1 (NFAT1) and Nemo-like kinase (NLK), key downstream mediators of non-canonical Wnt/calcium signaling. In vitro, knockdown of either NFAT1 or NLK induced b-catenin activation while overexpression of NLK significantly repressed b-catenin induction and largely preserved nephrin in glomerular podocytes. Thus, our results indicate that podocyte-derived Wnts play an important role in protecting podocytes from injury by repressing b-catenin via activating non-canonical Wnt/ calcium signaling.
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